


A Chosen Family

by OrtegaTrash (Malicei)



Series: Fallen Hero Fics [3]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Character Study, Control Issues, Cycle of Abuse, Even Evil Has Loved Ones, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Past Abuse, Pride, Trust Issues, Villain Study, abuse survivor, abuse survivor guilt, defying the world, m!ortega, mob boss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 14:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18209276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malicei/pseuds/OrtegaTrash
Summary: A villain's motivations are often hard to untangle. Pride makes his own (crime) Family, watches a pride parade and accepts himself.





	A Chosen Family

**Author's Note:**

> Name: Léon Bellandini | Puppet: Simba | Villain name: Pride
> 
> Daring/arrogant/fighter/lots of contacts/gang leader.

The streets are a flurry of colour and noise. There are so many people out there it’s giving you a headache, thousands of minds banging themselves up against your mental shields.

It hurts. And yet you don’t want to look away. Don’t want to leave. Maybe you can only watch this world through a glass barrier as an observer. You’ve never been one to look away from painful things, though.

Your fingers leave streaks on the glazed window.

People are happy. Open. Teasing. This is supposed to be a day of love. Tolerance. Pride in who they are and what they are, even against all the opposition thrown their way.

They wouldn’t accept you though. This day is for humans. For people. Not supposed  _things_  like you.

You don’t want to feel the disgust, the shock, the rejection. It’d hurt worse coming from those who have been on the receiving side of such rejection before and know exactly how much it hurts. Because then it’s deliberate. Then they know the pain and choose to wield it against you.

There aren’t any people like you out there on parade, and you’re going to change that. You refuse to be lesser, you refuse to hide and you refuse to lie about who or what you am anymore. Maybe you might have to resort to some less than savoury methods to do that, but it’s not like they gave you any choices to do things through proper channels.

No. If you’re going to make any real change, you’re going to have to start a revolution by yourself. It won’t be clean, it won’t be pretty. They never are, no matter how the history books paint them.

It all depends on how much you want something, and you want. You want it more than anything and you won’t let anything get in your way. They never allowed you to have your own desires, it feels good to spit in their face and say  _look! Look at me defying you! I will not bend, I will not break. I will never belong to anyone ever again._

You. Are. A. Person.

No matter how much they might call you less-than-human. No matter how much they refer to regenes as _‘it’_. Their opinions don’t matter to you anymore.

You are Pride, and you had hoped by choosing that name you’d learn to fill in that mask. Wear it until your face fills the gaps.

Glancing up, you make the decision to stride over to the fogged up mirror and wipe it clean. Your face stares back. Tired. Worn. More wrinkles than you would like, more scars and marks than you’d choose if you could have.

But strong. Accepting.

This is who you are.

You don’t want to ever be ashamed of what you are ever again.

If it means painful choices, if it means associating with the lowest of the low…it’s more than you ever had. If it means blood on your hands…so be it. You tried the path of the angels, and it just got you burnt.

To  _hell_ with them! You’ll drag them down here with you for what they’ve done to you.  What the world has done to you.

You’ve finally made your own family of misfits and fuck ups, you don’t need anyone else. Everyone else can burn.

Will burn.

You’re interrupted from your thoughts by the blurry sight of a couple kissing outside. Brave. Daring. Despite the welcoming environment of the day, the world still hides dangers for people who dare to be different, you know that all too well.

They look happy.

You really don’t understand it. Maybe they fucked you up when they made you, when they programmed you. You’ve seen what love looks like from delving through so many minds and yet…

It doesn’t make it any more incomprehensible. Their versions of love are so foreign to you, without the shouting, without the punishment, without the pain or control. For all its flaws, it was The Farm that taught you love and maybe you measure of it is broken as a result.

But you refuse to think of yourself as broken, less than. You are you, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe some people would say you’re missing out, but you don’t care. How can you miss something you never really had?

You don’t.

You’ve got a Family, and they’re all you need. You’ve all spilt blood for each other, a promise painted in pain. One that says “I will never leave”, because none of you can once you enter this sort of life, except at the end of a bullet. The others will ensure that. Maybe it’s fucked up, that you can only trust in a sort of relationship without the option of leaving. Maybe your trust and abandonment issues are a little bit (completely) messed up. You are all sorts of fucked up, even you can admit that.

But for someone like you. That promise, that whisper of trust that says you’ll never leave each other til death comes for you…that’s the closest thing you’ll have to love.

It will have to do.

A knock. Ortega’s muffled voice echoes through the sharp angles of the room. “Léon? C'mon, what are you doing in there that’s taking so long?! It’s been half an hour! I need to pee!”

_Dammit!_

Trust Ortega to ruin your serious musings! You quickly unlock the bathroom door and poke your head out, annoyed. “Go find a different bathroom! Can’t a man have his serious brooding alone time in peace!”

“Oooooh. _Ooooooh,_  so that’s how it is, don’t worry, I’ll leave you to  your 'alone’ time…”

You groan. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, asshole.”

“You know you love meee-”

Just for that, you give him a sharp jab in the sides as you storm dramatically out to get past him. “Remind me, why am I even friends with an idiot like you?”

Ortega stops for a second, right in the middle of the doorway. Blocking your path, rude! “This is the first time I’ve ever heard you admit it.” he says, softly. Looking up  to you with a soft smile spreading on his face, like he can’t believe what he’s heard.

Argh. Stupid Ortega, getting you all emotional. You are not going to tear up. Not in front of this idiot, who teases you, who you resent above all the others because he was the one you trusted.

You kind of expected it from Steel. But Ortega…

Ortega was the one you thought was your friend. Your best friend. And he-

He left you for  _dead_. He  _abandoned_  you.

You don’t know if you’ll ever forgive him for that.

The wounds never quite healed - only scabbed over, festering with infection underneath. You should hate him.  You kind of do. There’s a big part of you that’s still furious with him, still sore about the scars that will never ever leave you. You feel them aching every time you interact with him, a reminder of what he did to you.

And yet. And yet you’ve never quite been able to separate love and hate. That’s The Farm’s influence, you suppose. You despise The Farm, they ruined you, they made you their tool and you will not rest until you’ve destroyed them with your bare hands. Make them watch as you rip them apart personally and with a grudge, knowing that they did this, that their downfall was engineered of their own creation. And yet you-

You still _care._  About the handlers who might have been more gentle than the others, the gentle sting of the rubbing alcohol on your wounds, the soft words and warm pride that fills you after a job well done. Wanting to please them. Partly to avoid punishment, partly because it’s all you ever knew and you wanted their approval. Sought it out.

Of opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.

And for all you despise the man in front of you, for all you want to rip him to shreds and make him scream as you teach him the pain he forced you through…you will never be able to stop caring.

Hate and love and just two sides of the same coin. It’s not the sort of love that gives people doe-eyed glances and candle-lit dinners, but that’s not the only sort of love there is.

That’s why you inhale, look Ortega in the eye and admit what you really feel. “Idiot. Despite everything…even when you’re infuriating and I hate your guts, you’ll still always be my  _best friend._ ”

The pure joy in the smile that Ortega gives you lights up the room.


End file.
